It’s the summer doldrums, and it seems that many fringe history heavyweights are on vacation right now, and the lower echelons are trying to keep cool in the shade. The C-listers like Scott Wolter and Hutton Pulitzer seem to have gotten tired of me pointing out their errors and lies, so the two of them moved their weekly rehashing of old America Unearthed episodes from Soundcloud to a Facebook live stream on Pulitzer’s personal Facebook page (not his author page, Investigating History page, or any of his others), so that only a small number of their fans following their social media accounts can join their mutual lovefest and watch the Dutch angle live stream of a web cam video of Pulitzer’s computer screen displaying web cam images of the two men. The number of viewers was 313 as of this writing. I’m blocked from viewing their social media. Pulitzer promises to put the video up on YouTube at some point, but for now only those fans he has accepted as personal friends on Facebook (or at least hasn’t blocked, like me) are able to view the video. Who is afraid of the truth now? Apparently the people who are trying to hide their lies and talk only to true believers. ​[Update: The video is now on YouTube, and I will review it tomorrow.]

So it seemed like a good time to do some archival research. In so doing, I found a strange claim that shows the risks of not researching primary sources.

Our story today begins with the claim that the Cherokee preserved evidence of the truth of the Biblical narrative in their story of the Elohi, five Atlantic islands destroyed by fire and flood, which Europeans and European-Americans have long suggested is a reflection of the Hebraic Elohim, and thus proof of a connection to Genesis, Fallen Angels, or even Atlantis. The similarity of names had been remarked upon frequently, but Edgar Cayce tied the islands to Atlantis and pushed the material from Biblical to fringe historical in nature. Cayce was not the first to make the claim, however. Lord Arundell of Wardour had declared the Cherokee Flood Myth to be connected to Atlantis in passing in his 1885 book The Secret of Plato’s Atlantis.

Anyway, the Cherokee journalist Charla Jean Morris self-published a book in 2011 called From the First Rising Sun: The Real First Part of the Prehistory of the Cherokee People and Nation According to Oral Traditions, Legends, and Myths. In the book Morris identifies the ancient Cherokee homeland as Atlantis and compares the Cherokee Flood Myth to the Noachian Flood Myth as part of a much larger fringe takeover of Native beliefs.

This much is standard for fringe history and indeed appears in identical terms in the works of Frank Joseph on Atlantis. What is interesting to me, though, is the way Morris overreached in trying to prioritize Cherokee mythology ​within fringe history. For example, she alleges that Cherokee oral histories maintain that before Noah’s Flood people lived in “tall buildings” and “used 100% of their brains instead of the apparent and supposed 10% we use now.” These claims are not ancient; they occurred within the past few decades. Her source for this claim is her aunt, Lula Lee Morris Boggs, who alleges that she could trace her ancestry back to Julius Caesar, Boadicea, and Old King Cole! Another of her relatives allegedly descended from Pocahontas!

Morris, though, is steeped in fringe history in ways that are embarrassing to read. She attributes to Cherokee mythology claims taken from Graham Hancock about the precession of the equinoxes and the allegation that ancient Mexican peoples had knowledge of the same. She takes from fringe historians a half-understood claim that the ancients had “black stones” they used to see everything going on in the world, which she compares to iPads. This is a conflation of the magic mirror used by Surid in Arabian-Egyptian lore and the black obsidian mirror that John Dee used for magical rites. She also cites “gold or brass airplane models found at various sites around the world,” a somewhat confused reference to the Colombian gold insect sculptures that ancient astronaut theorists consider airplanes and wear on their lapels as symbols of their loyalty to the cause. She cites, too, claims of ancient atom bombs and that the people of India used rockets to stop Alexander the Great.

Following all this—presented as a discussion with a Cherokee elder who attributes the claims to “they say” and “legends”—Morris offers the Arabic pyramid legend and gives it an unusual twist. Regular readers will recall that the story, first told in the Akhbar al-zaman around 1000 CE, alleges that before the Great Flood the Egyptian king Surid had a vision that led him to construct the pyramids of Giza to protect knowledge and wisdom against the coming of the Flood. Now take a look at how Morris mangles the story from her reading of fringe history (capitalization and punctuation as in original):

Coptic 10th century writer Masudi stated, ‘Surid, one of the Kings of Egypt before the Deluge built the two great pyramids.’ Whether or not the “two great pyramids” refer only to the ones in present Egypt is debatable, especially since there is at least one, the one in China, the Great White Pyramid, which is possibly larger than the largest pyramid of Egypt. And let us not forget our own great pyramid, the pyramid our ancestors built, at Cholula in Mexico. It is the largest pyramid in the world by volume. That would mean the Great pyramid of Egypt might not even be one of the two great pyramids that Surid built.

How does one begin to unpack all of the wrongness in this short passage? Al-Mas‘udi was an Arab born in Baghdad, not a Coptic Christian. He is not the author of the Arab pyramid myth, and indeed he offered a different account of the origin of the pyramids. The account Morris uses is from the Akhbar al-zaman, wrongly attributed to Mas‘udi in the Middle Ages and incorrectly reprinted as his work in Col. Vyse’s Operations Carried on at the Great Pyramids of Gizeh (1840), the source for Erich von Däniken and most later fringe historians. (Seriously: It is fun to see how many have copied, often verbatim but sometimes indirectly, from this source.) The sentence given in the text is not a direct quotation. Presumably it is meant to reflect this line: “Surid is the builder of the two pyramids that are attributed to Shaddad ibn ’Ad” or the many very similar versions in the other Arabic historians. Her exact wording is mangled somewhat from that given at the start of the loose reconstructed semi-translation provided in Vyse’s Operations (vol. 2, p. 322), which did not have the benefit of a complete text of the Akhbar al-zaman. Vyse’s translator therefore reconstructed the text (somewhat wrongly) from al-Maqrizi, where his wording can be found at the head of the section quoting Ibrahim ibn Wasif Shah. Morris is incorrectly quoting bad quotations of Vyse popular in fringe literature, themselves based on a rewriting of a line not found in the original!

But because Morris has never read the full passage, let alone the complete Akhbar al-zaman, she is unaware that the line does not exist in isolation. The text makes absolutely plain that it speaks of the pyramids of Giza. There is no debate. You needn’t believe me, though: I have placed all of the texts in my Library (here, here, here, and here) where they may be viewed.

If there is one thing that really annoys me about the New Age is how it twists and distorts 'native beliefs' in service of a 'if it feels right it must be' worldview.

That said I am reminded of something I spotted on Jack Churchward's blog in the form of a group calling themselves the 'Muurish Empire Washita' who were claiming that John Churchward's books showed that they were the true rulers of the world, they may also be worth looking into.

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E.P. Grondine

6/26/2016 12:20:04 pm

For the 'Muurish Empire Washita', see:

http://www.danieljglenn.com/the_podcasts/Stelle/Documentation/He%20Walked%20Among%20Us%20Part%201.pdf
and parts 2 and 3.

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Graham

6/26/2016 09:39:39 pm

Thanks,

I'll be looking though that rabbit hole later.

Joe Scales

6/26/2016 11:30:18 am

Going back to the initial point, things must be tough all over for those on the fringe. Wolter has stooped so low as to perhaps spam those who've ever sent him an email, begging them to participate on his blog:

Darwin and all (I’ve blind-copied everyone else to protect their email privacy),

I’ve posted a new blog that was inspired by numerous recent theories about the Kensington Rune Stone and wanted to invite people to ask questions or present their ideas and see if they stand up to scientific scrutiny. Many of the new theories appear to be based on questionable evidence and some theories lack the appropriate known facts that might help or refute a particular idea. I invite supporters and detractors alike to serve up their ideas and let’s see how they do. In my new blog post I offer a quick dissection of one idea advanced by a geologist that didn’t fair too well. I think this will be fun, so please bring it!

Sorry Scott, but this detractor has had enough of your mendacity. I'll leave you to your idiots, plants and sock-puppets.

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Only Me

6/26/2016 12:16:14 pm

What would be the point to invite detractors? If he doesn't like what they say, he probably isn't going to approve the comment, right?

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Joe Scales

6/26/2016 03:55:03 pm

Detractors bring traffic to his blog site. However, trying to carry on a rational discussion with him contrary to his proofs by assertion is absolutely useless. He will only let you go as far as he thinks he can contain you. In the end, he'll call you names and refuse to post your rebuttals. Should more detractors give up even trying... well, then he's left to the idiots who fall prey to his sophisms... and who wants to read that?

So bring on the detractors, he begs...

Time Machine

6/27/2016 04:54:38 am

Are you a rationalist sceptic Joe?

Only Me

6/26/2016 12:14:05 pm

I hate to say it, but books like Morris's will simply become more grist for the fringe mill. As we've all seen before, the fringe isn't afraid to cannibalize or adopt any idea that might support it's many claims.

Besides, why go through the trouble of doing actual research when copying is so much easier?

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Doug

6/26/2016 12:18:44 pm

I've asked Scott on a number of occasions about his methods of discovery and proof. I've also asked about peer reviewed work of his since he insists he is using scientific means to investigate his claims.
But to date he has never posted any of my comments to his blog and has never answered my inquiries. I hope your right Jason, and he is pulling his views into a less public domain so as not to have to "hear" the negative questions about his methods.

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DaveR

6/27/2016 09:41:09 am

The problem with that is as he surrounds himself with only people who agree with him 100%, he will only become more sure of his correctness and become so fixed in his beliefs that he might start forming a cult.

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Kathleen

6/26/2016 02:07:44 pm

In the past SW seem to feel "that standing up in a court of law" trumped the scientific method. Do his more recent postings move to a more authentic approach? Or is he just using language that implies it. Sometimes I wish I could give him the benefit of a doubt. In the beginning he seemed to have a chance to turn away from the dark side

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Doug

6/26/2016 02:16:09 pm

He seems more intent on pointing out other peoples "obsession" with his claims as being the focus. He wants to look like the voice of reason while taking others comments out of context and putting a spin on what was said to make himself look like he's being patient with unreasonsable people. I'm seeing a lot more negative feedback to his posts than possitive. Probably why he's filtering out all but his most diehard fans. He hates it when you question his methods or conclusions.

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Joe Scales

6/26/2016 03:48:09 pm

Wolter has only testified as an expert in court in regard to petrography issues with building materials and the like. Both the Frye and Daubert legal standards would prevent him from testifying as an expert for any of his fringe activities; including the KRS. The "legal" tint of his latest blog rant is solely to counter this reality as brought before him, as he attempts to blur the most proper strict lines drawn against him in this regard in an attempt to further mislead his fandom.

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flip

6/26/2016 11:41:09 pm

A common tactic of the fringe, especially (and ironically) of creationists, is to rely on a misunderstanding that proving something in a court equals proving something true scientifically. With creationists, it's a tactical wedge to bypass actual peer review and get it into classrooms. I presume the logic here is that if they can 'prove' the KRS to be legit by courtroom standards, or to a lawyer's satisfaction, then that means he can ignore doing any actual science publication. But like with creationism, Wolter et al are too self-satisfied to realise this won't change anything.

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An Over-Educated Grunt

6/27/2016 10:05:32 am

This occurred to me today, not exactly a new thought but still bears on this post. Lot of what we are seeing today in terms of fringe mainstreaming is due to increased access to information without increased sorting capacity. It didn't matter much that late-19th Century English thought made everything a sun myth and every goddess into maid-mother-crone, because to the average person "The Golden Bough" simply didn't exist. Today though, the starting position for people like Morris is that secret codes are a thing, pyramids are a thing, therefore rather than interpret the story in the most straightforward way (Arabs write about pyramids in the Arab sphere, right or wrong), it's really a secret, coded reference to Atlantis, which is of course Cherokee.

This is just compounded on the back end because not only do we now have infinite monkeys on infinite typewriters but we also have a functionally infinite audience. Once it's recorded, someone will read it, and if someone reads it, there's a chance they'll take it seriously, because more data doesn't mean better processing.

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Kathleen

6/27/2016 11:34:40 am

AOEG, I find that I agree with you. It seems that the assumption is that the information has been predigested and vetted for accuracy just because it is available online. Critical thinking seems to be losing its value. It takes more work than clicking on the first entry on Google. I guess I am an analog individual in a digital world, and and an old folk since "I just don't understand kids today!"

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Maybe Another Kook

6/27/2016 03:40:28 pm

The financial advantage to promote fake 'possible' theories is also a motivating factor. If his/her theories attest to the validity of other authors' works, then he/she can appear on TV and radio to wildly enthusiastic audiences and sell more books, get invited to conferences to extol the virtues of their theory(and sell more books), or maybe you get your own TV show, etc. A bestselling book is a door to easy street even if he/she doesn't believe it.
OTOH, if you tell the truth and disagree with the narrative, you are blacklisted from the shows with the wildly enthusiastic audiences and/or you have trolls and jerks trying to sabotage your work.

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I'm an author and editor who has published on a range of topics, including archaeology, science, and horror fiction. There's more about me in the About Jason tab.